Innehållsförteckning för #402 från AppleMagazine

WHY THE CUPERTINO GIANT IS WELL-PLACED TO CONTINUE ITS GOLDEN RUN Towards the end of June, Apple dropped something of a bombshell among the tech press: the corporation’s Chief Design Officer, Jony Ive, was set to leave the company to launch his own design firm, LoveFrom . This wasn’t ‘just another’ staff departure from Apple: Ive had been part of the Apple fold for nearly 30 years, proving hugely influential in developing and refining product lines ranging from the Mac and iPod to the iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch. As the news broke, it inevitably ushered in feverish whispers about what Ive’s high-profile exit meant for Apple’s future – and especially tantalizingly, why Ive chose to leave. Speaking to the Financial Times, Ive implied that he sought more flexibility in…

With Apple prioritizing fitness initiatives through Apple Watch and the iPhone, many believe that Apple is headed in a new direction. Steve Jobs’ legacy will undoubtedly be the Mac, but could Tim Cook’s be Apple Health, and its ability to transform the way we work out and monitor our health in today’s always-on, data-hungry world? In this issue, we delve deeper… HOW APPLE KEEPS US FIT It’s hard to imagine visiting the gym or going out for a jog without our iPhone in tow. Today, the iPhone has become an essential part of the workout, whether you’re a fitness fanatic or you’re a couch potato trying to shift some pounds before your summer vacation. With iPhone, you’re able to listen to your favorite tracks on Apple Music, get lost in…

Researchers and restorers at Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum launched a months-long project this week, using high-tech imaging technology to throw new light on Rembrandt van Rijn’s iconic “Night Watch.” Working in a specially designed glass chamber, researchers at the museum are undertaking a painstaking examination and restoration of the huge portrait of a 17th-century civil militia. Art lovers around the world can follow the project online. “This is the first time that we can actually make a full body scan and that we can discover which pigments he used not only through making little samples but with scanning the entire surface,” said the museum’s general director, Taco Dibbits. “We don’t know much about how Rembrandt made this painting. And now we hope to discover more and really get a glimpse into the…

Alexa will see you now. Britain’s health care service is teaming up with Amazon’s digital voice assistant to help answer medical queries with advice from the service’s official website. Critics, however, warn about risks to data privacy. The British government said that the system will help people get quick and accurate health information. It will be especially useful for senior citizens, blind people and others who find it hard to access the internet while also easing pressure on doctors. Using Amazon’s algorithms, Alexa can answer voice questions from users about common maladies such as the flu or chickenpox with information verified by the National Health Service. It’s part of the British government’s long-term modernization plan to provide more digital health services. “We want to empower every patient to take better…

If you’re going to see one comedy starring Kumail Nanjiani as an Uber driver, please make it the 2017 film he co-scripted, “The Big Sick.” In “Stuber,” Nanjiani is again behind the wheel of a compact ride-sharing vehicle, but this time, the comedy is running on fumes and the company (Zoe Kazan in “The Big Sick,” Dave Bautista in “Stuber”) isn’t nearly as good. Stu is nicknamed “Stuber” by his obnoxious boss at a sporting goods store in a nod to his side gig. He’s conscripted by Bautista’s Vic, a Los Angeles police detective temporarily blinded by LASIK surgery, to drive him around town. Vic can hardly see, but he’s hell-bent on pursuing the most lethally acrobatic drug dealer you’ve ever seen (Iko Uwais of “The Raid”) who months ago…

Richard Branson’s space-tourism venture, Virgin Galactic, is planning to go public, creating the first listed human spaceflight firm. Virgin Galactic said Tuesday it is merging with Social Capital Hedosophia, whose CEO, Chamath Palihapitiya, will become chairman of the combined entity. The value of the merger was put at $1.5 billion. “We are at the dawn of a new space age, with huge potential to improve and sustain life on Earth,” Branson said. “I am delighted that SCH has decided to become such an important part of our amazing journey. They share our dreams and together we will make them reality.” The company intends to offer “a unique, multi-day experience culminating in a personal spaceflight that includes out-of-seat gravity and views of Earth from space.” It aims to complete the merger…

Civil rights activists complained of the potential for widespread abuse following confirmation that at least three states have scanned millions of driver’s license photos on behalf of Immigration and Customs Enforcement without the drivers’ knowledge or consent. Public records obtained by the Georgetown Law Center on Privacy and Technology provided the first proof that ICE had sought such scans, which were conducted in Utah, Vermont and Washington. All three states — which offer driving privileges to immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally — agreed to the ICE requests, according to documents shared with Media this week and first reported by The Washington Post. “States asked undocumented people to come out of the shadows to get licenses. Then ICE turns around and uses that to find them,” Alvaro Bedoya, the…

European Union authorities fined the Japanese company behind Hello Kitty for restricting cross-border online sales of toys, mugs, bags and other products featuring the cartoon cat girl. The EU’s antitrust commissioner, Margrethe Vestager, said that Sanrio Co. was fined 6.2 million euros ($7 million) because the company violated the bloc’s competition rules with licensing agreements that banned traders from selling merchandise in different countries in the bloc. The commission found Sanrio’s illegal practices were in force for 11 years until December. Restricting cross-border sales “leads to less choice and potentially higher prices for consumers and is against EU antitrust rules,” Vestager said. EU authorities launched their investigation in 2017, alongside probes into Nike and Universal Studios, as they ratcheted up scrutiny of e-commerce as part of efforts to foster a…

Navigating airports can be tricky. They’re loud, crowded and not always laid out intuitively. They’re even more challenging for visually impaired people. Chieko Asakawa knows those challenges firsthand, and she has also devised a remedy. Asakawa has been blind since she was 14 and is now an IBM Fellow and a professor in Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Institute. This spring, she and other researchers at Carnegie Mellon launched a navigation app for Pittsburgh International Airport that provides turn-by-turn audio instructions to users on how to get to their destination, be it a departure gate, restaurant or restroom. Pittsburgh is one of a growing number of airports around the globe to provide wayfinding apps. The Pittsburgh app, called NavCog, was first used at the Carnegie Mellon campus and works almost like…

Samsung Electronics Co. said its operating profit for the last quarter likely fell more than 56% from a year earlier amid a weak market for memory chips. The South Korean tech giant estimated an operating profit of 6.5 trillion won ($5.5 billion) for the April-June quarter, which would represent a 56.3% drop from the same period last year. The company said its revenue likely fell 4% to 56 trillion won ($48 billion), but did not provide a detailed account of its performance by business division. It will release a finalized earnings report later this month. Analysts say falling prices of DRAM and NAND memory chips are eating into the earnings of the company, which saw its operating profit during the first quarter drop more than 60% from last year. U.S.…

Uber passengers can now get a more spacious ride and a less talkative driver — if they’re willing to shell out a few extra dollars. The ride-hailing giant launched “comfort” rides in dozens of cities Tuesday. Riders are guaranteed 36 inches of legroom in “newer” cars — meaning those that are under five years old — and they can request a preferred air temperature. Riders can also use the app to tell drivers they don’t want to chat, avoiding what some consider an awkward exchange. Uber is responding to requests from business travelers and others who say they just want to work or rest quietly when they’re on their way to the airport. “It’s a way to set up an expectation up front...it takes some guess work out of the…

Shazam! After a mysterious wizard (Djimon Hounsou) bestows powers on 14-year-old foster child Billy Batson (Asher Angel), the latter finds that he can turn into a powerful superhero resembling a costumed, muscular adult man (Zachary Levi) just by uttering the word “Shazam”. However, the villainous Dr. Sivana (Mark Strong) is on the hunt for the new superhero’s powers. FIVE FACTS: 1. The film is based on the DC Comics character known as Shazam – or as he has alternatively been called since his creation in 1939, Captain Marvel. 2. This Captain Marvel is not to be confused with the superhero of the same name owned by DC’s main rival in the comic book space, Marvel Comics. 3. New Line, one of the production companies behind the film, started developing a…

AT&T is pulling “Friends” from Netflix to beef up its own upcoming streaming service. With new services launching, popular shows are splintering onto several different platforms. The wireless company, which owns the WarnerMedia entertainment business, also said Tuesday that its service will be called HBO Max. It will launch in spring of 2020. As the name suggests, it will contain HBO content, other video from the Warner Bros. studio — like “Friends” — and new series and movies that are exclusive to the service. AT&T has not announced a price. As more companies — Comcast, Apple, Disney — unveil their own streaming services, they’re trying to make them more appealing with exclusive shows and deep libraries. Entertainment companies are pulling some of their stuff from Netflix to stock their own…

Before Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin knew they would be the first to walk on the moon, they took crash courses in geology at the Grand Canyon and a nearby impact crater that is the most well-preserved on Earth. Northern Arizona has had deep ties to the Apollo missions: Every moon-walking astronaut trained here, and a crater on the moon was even named in honor of the city of Flagstaff. “It’s a really interesting and unique part of our history, and it’s really cool to think that this relatively small town in northern Arizona played such a big role in the Apollo missions,” said Benjamin Carver, a public lands historian at Northern Arizona University. Today, astronaut candidates still train in and around Flagstaff, which is among many cities celebrating the…

Twitter now prohibits hate speech that targets religious groups by using dehumanizing language, a ban it says may extend to other categories like race and gender. The social network already bars hateful language directed at individual religious adherents. It also bans hate speech on the basis of someone’s race, gender and other categories. Tuesday’s change broadens the hate speech rule to forbid likening entire religious groups to subhumans or vermin, without targeting a specific individual. Twitter, along with YouTube and Facebook, has been under fire for the prevalence of harassment and hate on its service. Twitter’s latest update came after users wrote in thousands of responses when the company asked for suggestions on how to expand its hate speech policies. The company says it may also ban similar language aimed…

President Donald Trump is gathering conservative groups at the White House this week for a “summit” on social media that will prominently snub the tech titans who run big platforms on Facebook, Twitter and Google. It’s a sharp contrast to earlier days in Trump’s tenure when tech executives were occasional celebrity guests at the White House, serving as a fresh indication of the president’s escalating battle with Big Tech. Now, Trump regularly accuses the big social media platforms of suppressing conservative voices. He has suggested the companies may be acting illegally and should be sued by U.S. regulators. White House spokesman Judd Deere said the White House conference would bring together “digital leaders for a robust conversation on the opportunities and challenges of today’s online environment.” But Google, Facebook and…

Uma Valeti slices into a pan-fried chicken cutlet in the kitchen of his startup, Memphis Meats. He sniffs the tender morsel on his fork before taking a bite. He chews slowly, absorbing the taste. “Our chicken is chicken ... you’ve got to taste it to believe it,”Valeti says. This is no ordinary piece of poultry. No chicken was raised or slaughtered to harvest the meat. It was produced in a laboratory by extracting cells from a chicken and feeding them in a nutrient broth until the cell culture grew into raw meat. Memphis Meats, based in Emeryville, California, is one of a growing number of startups worldwide that are making cell-based or cultured meat. They want to offer an alternative to traditional meat production that they say is damaging the…

The powerful Mojave Desert earthquakes that rocked California ended a years-long lull in major seismic activity and raised new interest in an early warning system being developed for the West Coast. The ShakeAlert system is substantially built in California and overall is about 55% complete, with much of the remaining installation of seismic sensor stations to be done in the Pacific Northwest, said Robert de Groot of the U.S. Geological Survey. Areas that have the appropriate number of sensors include Southern California, San Francisco Bay Area and the Seattle-Tacoma region, de Groot said. The system does not predict earthquakes. Rather, it detects that an earthquake is occurring, rapidly calculates expected intensity levels and sends out alerts that may give warnings ranging from several seconds to perhaps a minute before potentially…

Blue Sky in Your Head Lighthouse Family The musical duo Lighthouse Family, comprising vocalist Tunde Baiyewu and keyboardist Paul Tucker, formed in Newcastle upon Tyne, England in 1993, after meeting while both students in the British city. Blue Sky in Your Head is only their fourth studio album, and their first since Whatever Gets You Through the Day 18 years earlier. FIVE FACTS: 1. The duo became an established name in ‘easy listening’ in Europe with their debut album, 1995’s Ocean Drive, which sold over 1.8 million copies in the UK alone. 2. The name of that first album was taken from the drive that runs near Newcastle, from Sunderland’s Roker Pier to South Shields’ Ocean Road. 3. The band’s best-known hits include “Lifted”, “Ocean Drive” and “High”. 4. The…

Princess Daazhraii Johnson grew up eating dried salmon and moose-head soup — foods labeled weird by other kids who had no understanding of her culture and traditions. Now the Fairbanks woman and other Alaska Natives are presenting their world to a general audience with “Molly of Denali,” the nation’s first-ever children’s series featuring indigenous leads. The animated show, which premieres July 15 on PBS Kids, highlights the adventures of a 10-year-old Athabascan girl, Molly Mabray. Her family owns the Denali Trading Post in the fictitious community of Qyah, whose residents are both Native and non-Native. “We have an opportunity with this show, with ‘Molly of Denali,’ to inform and to show us in a positive and respectful light,” says Johnson, creative producer of the series and a member of an…

Federal agents descended on the suburban Maryland house with the flash and bang of a stun grenade, blocked off the street and spent hours questioning the homeowner about a theft of government documents that prosecutors would later describe as “breathtaking” in its scale. The suspect, Harold Martin, was a contractor for the National Security Agency. His arrest followed news of a devastating disclosure of government hacking tools by a mysterious internet group calling itself the Shadow Brokers. It seemed to some that the United States might have found another Edward Snowden, who also had been a contractor for the agency. “You’re a bad man. There’s no way around that,” one law enforcement official conducting the raid told Martin, court papers say. “You’re a bad man.” Later this month, about three…

Heather Mills, the former wife of Paul McCartney, and her sister have received an apology and a settlement from Britain’s defunct News of the World tabloid over the hacking of their phones. Heather Mills and her sister Fiona Mills both received a formal apology in Britain’s High Court. In a statement read outside the court, she said she felt “joy and vindication” at the settlement. “My motivation to win this decade-long fight stemmed from a desire to obtain justice, not only for my family, my charities and myself, but for the thousands of innocent members of the public who, like me, have suffered similar ignominious, criminal treatment at the hands of one of the world’s most powerful media groups,” she said. Mills is one of a number of celebrities who…